System Administrators: How much do you get paid for on call?
- Thread starter JBod
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Yup - 30 minute response is about average.
We have the same... it's 30min response to the call... not to resolution or even start work...
I think you must have misunderstood.
In a period where you may be out having a meal, sleeping, or doing one of a million activities you can be available, online and working within 10 mins?
BTW hundreds of thousands is small-fry for the systems my teams support (literally) and we have a maximum response time of 30 mins, and attendance in the office within a maximum of 2 hours.
Exactly any less than 30 minutes for a response let alone be working on a resolution and your tied to a desk for which I would want prety much my normal working wage.
Used to get paid £700 a week. Next job paid £300 a week. New job pays £180, although i don't do it.
The nature of the business / response times / total callouts per week and overtime are all crucial.
When i was getting paid £700 a week i was expected to be available to be working on a problem all night and willing to jump on a plane at 7am if it needed it!
The nature of the business / response times / total callouts per week and overtime are all crucial.
When i was getting paid £700 a week i was expected to be available to be working on a problem all night and willing to jump on a plane at 7am if it needed it!
Soldato
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I'll soon be lumped with the "pleasure" of going on-call for my current employer within the next couple of months, and am somewhat apprehensive about it for the sole fact that the remuneration is abysmal. Witness:
Doing 1 week in 4, for each evening that you are on standby you are provided 1 hour's flat rate wage. Time and a half at weekends. Essentially, for an entire week on standby you receive 1 days' extra pay.
If you're called, you get paid time and a half or double time, depending on the date/holidays etc., which you log in increments of 15 minutes work time. This can be taken as paid, or time in lieu.
Doing 1 week in 4, for each evening that you are on standby you are provided 1 hour's flat rate wage. Time and a half at weekends. Essentially, for an entire week on standby you receive 1 days' extra pay.
If you're called, you get paid time and a half or double time, depending on the date/holidays etc., which you log in increments of 15 minutes work time. This can be taken as paid, or time in lieu.
Put simply, I would refuse.
It's well below market rate. If, as a manager, I tried implementing that (forgetting all leadership morals as i wouldn't ever cover it for that cash) I would have everyone currently on an on-call agreement tell me they wouldn't do it any more, and raise a grievance.
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To be fair... the remuneration for actually doing the work sounds like standard overtime rates - so isn't too bad.
The base rate for making yourself available though, is abysmal.
Associate
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This is my company's on-call payments:
Stand-by rate = £150 per week.
Call-out rate = flat fee + £10 per hour after the first hour.
Flat fee = £50 between 22:00 and 06:00.
Flat fee = £20 outside of working hours other than the range stated above.
We'er on-call 24 hours a day starting on a friday & ending the following thursday. We get the standby rate regardless of whether we get a call or not.
There is a rota for the 5 of us in the dept but we just sort out who'll do what week and if ncecessary we'll end up doing 2 weeks in a row if someone can't manage or can't be bothered, during the holiday periods sometimes someone will end up being on call for the entire month.
Normally don't get called so just sit around all weekend & evenings and watch TV and get £150 for the pleasure of it
Stand-by rate = £150 per week.
Call-out rate = flat fee + £10 per hour after the first hour.
Flat fee = £50 between 22:00 and 06:00.
Flat fee = £20 outside of working hours other than the range stated above.
We'er on-call 24 hours a day starting on a friday & ending the following thursday. We get the standby rate regardless of whether we get a call or not.
There is a rota for the 5 of us in the dept but we just sort out who'll do what week and if ncecessary we'll end up doing 2 weeks in a row if someone can't manage or can't be bothered, during the holiday periods sometimes someone will end up being on call for the entire month.
Normally don't get called so just sit around all weekend & evenings and watch TV and get £150 for the pleasure of it
You'd never get the job... far too much time posting on OCUK.
Maybe I should have posted originally but right now it is £50 a week and I am doing it all myself because it is such a crap rate of on call I can't possibly expect my team to do it.
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Time in lieu!
It sucks so damn much. I currently sit at 45 days holiday.
It sucks so damn much. I currently sit at 45 days holiday.
£50 a week! after tax etc I cannot for the life of me understand why you do it, life is too short to waste it on call for no gain.
HAHAHA, yeah right
HAHAHA, why on earth did you ever accept that?!
Seriously though, just because you're getting the shaft doesn't mean your staff won't want a reasonable pay. Yours is very, very unreasonable but that doesn't make a £200 flat rate right.
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Don't do it?
HAHAHA, yeah right
HAHAHA, why on earth did you ever accept that?!
Seriously though, just because you're getting the shaft doesn't mean your staff won't want a reasonable pay. Yours is very, very unreasonable but that doesn't make a £200 flat rate right.
My team, my responsibility as are the services we offer (I chose to take the cash rather than do it for free as I would do it anyway). Not a question of accepting it, its a question of dealing with it and fixing it. It is an on call rate that was agreed when literally 1 thing may go wrong in a month and before I took over the team.
Based on feed back here I am pushing for much more.
Anyone have any online sources that I can use as ammo? I'd rather not link to a OCUK thread ...
Considering it is for Systems, I am the Systems Manager answerable to the CEO and the Board... it is not really an option.
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Ouch!
Your company offers a 24/7 support structure...
Your company charges clients to offer that service...
You get paid nothing to do it... company makes pure profit on your slave labour...
... I don't understand why anyone would do that willingly unless you have a very good salary starting point that's over the odds for your role...
Your contract cannot possibly include being subjected to that.
I'm all for going a little above and beyond, doing the extra bit to stand out... but that just doesn't seem worth it.
Your company offers a 24/7 support structure...
Your company charges clients to offer that service...
You get paid nothing to do it... company makes pure profit on your slave labour...
... I don't understand why anyone would do that willingly unless you have a very good salary starting point that's over the odds for your role...
Your contract cannot possibly include being subjected to that.
I'm all for going a little above and beyond, doing the extra bit to stand out... but that just doesn't seem worth it.
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I think you are applying your job and experiences to an entire industry. Our "Systems Administration" is all about managing internal Systems to for our company. We are DotCom live in around 49 - 55 territories currently. We don't sell support and we dont have a 24/7 support structure. In fact we don't have a support team (just some customer services).
If I was a CEO I wouldn't be expecting my manager to be doing the on call, I'd expect his peons to be doing it for him
I used to get £200 for doing a week on call, then hourly rate if you had to do anything.
Reason it was relatively low is that nothing ever used to happen to get called up about.